Reflection Week 1 (August 28-August 30) This was my first week of teaching.

I was very nervous to see if I could handle grade 7 and 8. I had heard of some students that were a bit more work to keep focused. Meeting the students I realized that with one a year in between the 2 that they were very different. Grade 7 was very interesting in me and asking lots of questions while the grade 8 class kept more distance. The grade 7 class will be more talkative I think then the grade 8 class. I know that the students individually make a difference to the classroom too because some work off each others energy, good or bad. This week I just started to see what they were like and how they interact together. It will take some trial and error to see what works with these classrooms. It is hard to compare them to my other practicums not only because one was older and one was younger than them but also the individual students. Sometimes I know I will fail and sometimes I will find things that work great in the classroom. I hope I will be able to figure them out sooner than late. I will read up on IPPs too so I can help individual students more where they are struggling. I have started to get a feeling of their skill level by walking around the classroom while they are working but I do need to know more about then that I may not see when walking around the classroom.

Reflection Week 2 (September 3 to 6) This was my first full week of teaching. I was at the school for over 10 hours last weekend prepping. The one thing that has stood out a lot from my last 2 practicums is the high level of independence I have. My mentors and University consultant are not here to keep an eye on me to make sure I have all my prep done in time for classes. They are not in the classroom in case I forgot material for the class. I have made several do to lists and daily/weekly plans so I can figure out if I am staying on track. I am glad I get this practicum to make it a smoother transition to a full time teaching job. The students are getting noisier and a little out of control. I am trying different techniques to get students to be quiet. Some are just waiting, telling them to be quiet, taking something away from them when they are not, or talking quietly for some students to hear and them telling the rest to be quiet. I talked to my mentor and he said calling on individual students helps too. I have started becoming pickier with my 3 strikes hoping it would help. Thursday and Friday I sent the same student out into the hall, I thought that after Thursday I had made my point very clear. I was disappointed when I did not. He was very upset on Friday when I sent him out of class knowing that I would be calling the parents home. When I call home after school, the dad was more on the fathers side and said I was picking on his son and singling him out. I assured him this was not the case and that he had many chances before I sent him out to the hall way to change his behavior. The dad said that I was a student teacher and asked if there was anyone watching me. I told him it was my third practicum and I do have a mentor that checks on my once in a while. I told him he was more than welcome to call him to ask about my teaching. The dad said he would come into the classroom Monday morning to watch. I told him he was more than welcome to come. Once I finished talking to him, I talked to my mentor about the phone call and he said sitting in the classroom probably would not make a difference because the student will behave then. My mentor said he would come to sit in as well on Monday. This made for a little bit of a stressful day but when talking to my mentor and him hearing my side of the story; he said I had done nothing wrong. He said many of the parents do side with their child. Monday the dad came in and seemed a lot more relaxed and understanding about my actions towards his son. This was a big relief for me. My mentor stayed and watched during class but the dad did not.

Reflection Week 3 (September 9 to 13) I am having troubles making lessons more creative. Last practicum I had to focus on teaching material and having students practice as much as possible. I fear that making very fun oriented classes will lead to less learning of the material. I have founds partner work to sometimes work and other times not at all. For a review for math 8, I had them work on partners and make an easy question from their section given to them. Then to move back one row and answer that groups question and make it a little harder. This would repeat 3 times and by that time class was over. I do not feel like students accomplished much. There were many students sitting chatting when they had finished making the question harder so I feel like they could have gotten a lot more done if it was individual work. I thought about pulling out some sponge activity like a Sudoku but Im not sure going back and forth from the questions to the Sudoku 5 times would be handy. After this lesson I was thankful that tomorrows class was a work period on the practice test but not sure that is a good thing to be feeling. The day before my math 7 test, we went over an assignment and the class average was close to a 50% or lower. This scared me a bit, I had worked lots on rotations and finding different way to teach them and have them to it (board, projector, individually) I had also used different tools such as tracing paper and colored shapes. I decided that I would let students fix their mistakes on the homework in math instead of doing science. I had planned a science experiment and during the experiment students started to get restless and distracted, I warned them that we all have to do this experiment together. Students still were not paying attention after a couple times of me telling them this or something like it so I quit the experiment. I had the students go back to their desks and work on questions instead. I feel bad when I have to take measures like this or sending someone out into the hallway but I have also seem that it is sometimes necessary. Then next time the students will behave better because they know the consequences and that I will go through with them. This has helped me take more actions in disciplining.

Reflection Week 4 (September 16 to 19) I am working on different sponge activities I can do with the students. I have let them quietly talk and it has not led to much success because the classroom gets noisy and students get bored. When they get bored they find way to entertain themselves and it is not always the safest things. Sometimes it things go good I will give them a deck of card or let them draw when they are done a worksheet but say they do have to stay in their own desk. With both grades I have learned that telling them that something did not go well lasting when I gave them more free range that this time it will be limited. I have tried several different things now and I am learning what works and what does not. After my grades 7s had a math test and then worked quietly on a practice test for science that they did really good and allowed them to watch some Americas Funny Home Videos. I know that this is not educational but they had over an hour or silence and though their brains could use a break. I have more success this way to get them back to work after then letting them sit and chat to classmates. Another thing I am learning this week is figuring our when activities are going to take longer or way short of the period. Sometimes it mean coming up with an activity on the spot or starting the next lesson. Both have worked so far as long as they are somewhat educational, if I let them have free time or play a games; I have to make sure I do not do it too often. I have a feeling if I do then they will start rushing through work to be able to play a games.

Reflections Week 5 (September 23-27) I have noticed that on Mondays students are more likely to be a bit more disruptive or noisy. I think it is because of their weekend off and in the case a long weekend. I just have to remind students to be quiet a couple more times. Maybe it would be smart to have less group work on Monday and save it till Tuesday. The students were good on Thursday when they were about to start the long weekend. When I was teaching in a High School the students were always more excited on the Thursday rather than the Monday. I guess it might have to do with what junior high versus high school students do on the weekends. Interesting to get the experience and see how different a couple grade levels can be. Tuesday the noise level was much better! I made sure I told the students that this is what I am looking for and wanted when I ask for a quiet room. Students have to understand the different and they really liked it and I saw many smiles when I told the class I was very happy with today! With my grade 8 classroom they were taking a long time to mark assignments and goofing off while I was trying to get a jeopardy game started. I told them they had to take the class more seriously because that is the only way we will be doing fun games. I told them that if we work hard and focus on what needs to be done that we can do more fun activities. Tomorrow I will not be doing the jeopardy for much of class because even though some of the students did take class more seriously after the talk, some did not. It sucks for some of the students to have to sacrifice time when they were behaving but I need the class as a whole to be doing so. I have a student in grade 7 who has ADHD and I am worried about her grade. She just doesnt seem to understand much of either math or science. My mentor said it is normal for her to fail assignments and test. I have her staying in at lunch a couple times a week, told her she had extra math questions to do for me, had to get her failed test marks signed by her parents, and call on her more in class. I feel like I am about to enter a battle that cannot be won because she is so far behind in math that is seems like she will be lost in every class. I am wondering if I am taking this on from a good perspective or not? I asked her what would help her and after the next test if our solutions have not helps we will think of other ones. My mentor did remind me that I cannot work and put all my effort into this student because some has to come from her.

Reflections Week 6 (September 30-October 4) Today was a very windy day outside. I could notice it with my students when I have my quiet students being noisy and disrupting the classroom. I am not sure how much discipline I should have enforced today because it had to do with the weather. I think some is necessary but maybe not to the extent of normal days. Everyone has their off day but in the real world workers will not get a break just because the weather is unusual. It did not help that today I have a students get hurt when a desk fell on her toe. I have another student get a little sick seeing the blood and other students interested in seeing what happened to her toe. Students became unfocused and it was a little harder than normal to get them back on track and doing their assignment. We did get back on track and my hurt student will be okay. These last couple days I have been getting sick with a cold. It is really hard to stay happy and excited about class. The students deserve the best of me and it is really hard to give that it when I feel like my head is just pounding. I drink lots of tea and try to focus on the students and the message that I have in mind to get across to them. I take it class by class and as long as I keep move it has seemed to help. I love my job here and do not want to slack or take the job lightly. If I stay this sick for too long I will take a day off because the students do deserve the best and if I am too sick to do teach then I need to call in sick. This is also a good example for the students that just because you are feeling a little off; still come to school so you do not miss anything. I do want to teach them that if they are very sick to stay home. What I expect of them; I should be doing as a role model for the students. Im feeling better today. Students are very forgiving when it comes to my saying silly thing because my head is not completely with it. Their minds are on a day to day schedule so yesterday is gone. Sometime this can be a good thing and other days not so much. Students need to think ahead of their goals and behind them for mistakes they have made. This way they will not make the same mistakes again and hopefully remember success they have had in the past. They will see that they are getting close to a goal of good test mark and thinking that the weekend is coming up so working harder in class may help them to have less homework during the weekend. I have realized that these age ranges of students need a refresher every now and then to remind them of yesterday and tomorrow.

Reflections Week 7 (October 7-11) Today I told my grade 8 at the beginning of class that I was engaged and they asked a bunch of questions and then I wanted to go onto todays lecture but struggled to get their attention back. I had been wanted to tell them for a week now at the end of class because I had a feeling this would happen but always seemed to forget. So I said I would do it today. I saw that students knew the material and did not need much practice to understand the questions. So I would be okay with it if they were not totally focused. They did manage to get a bit done but it requested some discipline. Tomorrow I will make sure that student understood the material and to remind them that they were very talkative yesterday so that may be part of the reason they were not understand some of it. These last couple days the students have been getting noisy. I have to call 2 parents home. I am having troubles with students commenting on either their strikes or things I do that they do not agree with. I tell the student I do not need the comments. I asked my mentor what I can do differently because it doesnt seem to be working these last couple days. He said to stop what you are doing, say their name and tell them you do not need the side comments. I think tomorrow I will warn them at the beginning of class that I will get pickier and that every comment is a strike. I need to be more consequential and on top of it to make it fair for all the students. Today we went on a field trip to Writing on Stone. It was a lot of fun. All the students were paying full attention to the speaker and asking a lot of questions. There were a few that asked more than others but they all seemed to be paying close attention. It was good that we had them doing a work booklet which gave them extra incentive to pay attention. I think even without the booklet they would of but maybe come across a couple behavioral issues. My 2 boys that get noisy in class were very well behaved and 2 of the students that asked the most amount of questions. Could this have something to do with behavior in class when it is just work at a desk? When these 2 boys start to misbehave I usually punish them by having them do individual work which I think they get bored of. I think next week I will try and have them moving around more in the classroom. I want to keep them focused on the math work ahead and not trying to distract other students.

Reflections Week 8 (October 15-18) Today my math lesson didnt take as long as thought it would. My students understood the concept and had shown me they knew what it was about. One student suggested everyone saying what they did over the Thanksgiving Holiday and I said sure. So we talked for a bit about what everyone did. I made sure they only told a story or 2 so we would be able to get through everyone in the class. I told students as long as they behaved and listened while others were talking that I was okay with it. Students did behave very well. This got me thinking about when it is okay to get a little off top with the class has been good and when to say no because class has not been behaving like they should. When students have been noisy and they ask if they can listen to music during an individual project they are working on I say no. I tell them that you have not been able to show me that you can work quietly without music so I will not let you listen with music. If they are being noisy that I say no group work as well. But I do believe if I say no to things because of bad behavior that I should say yes to good behavior. I am surprised how much a full moon can affect the students behaviors. I am not sure if I would be punishing student for their behavior when it is because of the moon. I have talked about this before in my reflections but sometimes thoughts come back and youre still wondering if you are making the right decision. This week I only taught 3 days, so the week flew by! I am glad that I keep up with my school work because I know it would be a lot more stressful if I didnt. A teacher can be stressful enough already with students nevertheless the work load. I do most of my work on the weekends and a bit after school each day and therefore my workload is less on the weekend. I believe if I were to work all the time on school work that I would eventually burn out. I think there has to be a balance but to keep the student at your first priority. One way this can be done is to more make long lesson plans or very heavy lesson plans. I understand they should not be boring either but there is a balance needed. If the lesson plans are long and heavy in work load then the teacher will get tired and when it comes to preforming the lesson it may be lacking energy. I hope I can keep this balance in my teaching career and not lead too much one way or the other.

Reflection Week 9 (Oct 21-25) Reports cards are coming up soon and I am gone for the next 2 weekend before they are due. I have still a couple things to get planned and organized. I have made a list of things I need to do and when I am going to do them. I feel like if I cover the things that need to be done and set a time when they have to be done by; I will not be one of those teachers scrambling to get my report cards in the morning they are due. I am happy that is stresses me out too much to do it last minute and therefore I plan ahead. I think this has saved me much heartache because its good to know you are thinking ahead. I understand that every person is different and some people need to pressure in order to get their work done. I have just handed out every students mark as of this date. I am surprised that some students in the high 70s want to do enough work to get that 80% and others are asking for more work when they are in the 60s. The student who is failing my class did not care and did not ask for any help. Maybe an extra day to let it sink in will help. I thought it would be obvious that if a student was in the 70 range for all her test that it would make sense that you are not in the 80 range. I think maybe I should give them an overall mark after every chapter test so there are no surprises.

Last night was the schools Halloween dance. At the beginning it was quite slow but the girls were so excited and were all dressed up. I thought that even if some people did not come that you want to at least give everyone the opportunity to enjoy themselves. Last year the dance did not go well but the school now wants to start a new streak of having danced become fun and student is less abusive to them. It went really good last night and about 1/3 of the school was there. I feel like with time these dances will become more popular as students and parents see the changes occurring.

It is hard when something has gone wrong to gain back the trust. This is not only with the dance but in the classroom too. I notice it most with my grade 7 boys when they think I have done something that is unfair and they will either give my negative comment or ignore me. It may only take a day or two to regain the trust when I pay more attention to them, but it does happen quicker if I take charge and change the situation. If I were to leave and ignore it for a few more days that it would take longer. The grade 7 boys are in a changing period so sometime they are not sure why they are feeling or reacting in a certain way but it is up to the student and me to regain that trust.

Reflection Week 10 (Oct 22- Nov 1) The students have the next 4 weeks with a long 3 day weekend. I notice that every long weekend seems to bring noisier students come the first day back. I am wondering how I can control the noise level and be prepared. Maybe separate the desk the first day back so there will be less talking. Maybe plan more quiet work so that it is not too noisy in the classroom. I will be strict that day and make sure I stick with my rules of discipline. I have noticed that when class goes will and I stop using it that it starts to get worse again. I think finding the balance is the hardest part, I have heard from other teachers that I am not the only one struggling with control. I am glad to be able to communicate with other teacher and hear that I am not the only one that struggle with certain things. It sounds like it can be an ongoing this sometimes to deal with. It makes me feel better and not too over helmed with the students when I am not in full control. My students tell me that their other teacher, who is a male, is kind of scary so they listen better to him. I think that sometimes I am views more as an older sibling then a teacher or a nice teacher. I try and tell the students that class isnt much fun with me if you do not listen or the class gets very noisy. I tell them students get frustrated because they do want to learn. This week was Halloween, students are a bit more excited to go out trick or treating. I have noticed the start of the year effort is starting to decrease. Students are starting to get tired of school and want a break. They have a 3 day week coming up which Im hoping will help. I have started to remind the students what is expected of them and tell them why they are in school and why it is important to stay focused. I believe if they know why they are in school and why it is important that that will help students try harder rather than telling them they have to get to work. Sometimes its hard for them to look that far again in the future because they think it is so far away. A teacher needs to remember what age they are teaching and what kind of views they have so the teacher can help them see what they normally do not think about.

Reflection Week 11 (Nov 5-Nov 8) Today the noise was very high today. I was hoping it would not be but the students are very excited today. They just had another long weekend. I am going to try and do more individual work and see how that goes with the class. Next week I will see if group work works. I feel like this is more of a punishment if they are doing it on their own but I do understand that they need to move around and loose some of their energy. They were behaving better at one point during science and should of taken a break their and played a games but I didnt want to risk it. Class did not get any better the next class, so next time I will be taking the risk and having a break. With time I think it will get better. My grade 8s had a test today and the class average went up a percent or two from the last one. But what frustrated me was some student wrong ? for an answer on their test when I told them at the beginning of the class to ask me if they were confused on a questions. I talked to their other teacher and asked about it and she says she gets it too. She said the dynamics in the classroom is that it is uncool to ask questions. The popular students in the classroom are the 90 plus students so if you want to be part of that group you should not be asking questions. I wonder how you can get it out of some of the students minds that that is the case. I understand that they need to start taking responsibility of their own learning and ask the questions but is this what they have to go through to get there? I understand that some students have to learn the hard way and I will make sure I bring this up at parent-teacher interviews next week and see what the parents thoughts are. I have now gotten a couple of the tests signed back from the parents and one wrote a note saying that she would like her son do extra work with his tutor. I am glad to see that there is support coming from the home. This students struggles with math and need to do more practice which the parents understand and know. This mean that they student will try harder in class with the help of his parents. I have had a student fail the last two tests and had those both signed without an improvement or a suggestion of how he is going to improve his grade. I will do my best to work with this student so that the next test is an improvement and set up an appointment with his parents for parent-teacher interviews.

Reflections Week 12 (Nov 12-14) Today my grade 7s had a test. I marked them and came to a couple surprises. One of my students was done in half the class and I thought that was kind of strange. I asked her if she had checked her test over and she said yes. When I marked it she got 25% on it. I talked to my mentor and he said she seemed to have rushed it but not sure why. I told him I think I should have a talk with her tomorrow of why she rushed her test. The grade 7s have another test tomorrow and then will do corrections in this test so he said he would take my class for a bit while I took a few of the students that did not do so well to his room and go over the test with them. I have printed off new test so they have more room to write and will attach this one to their old test. This will not be taken in for mark but just for practice. Another one of my students failed the test because she hand assignments in a week or so late so sometimes she has already written the test but only one of the three assignments about that test are handed in. I will be reminding her to get her assignments in sooner and her mark should improve.

Today we had parent teacher interviews where I was glad to see a couple of parent whose child was not doing well in my class. The parents were concerned and asked many questions to help their child succeed in my class. I started with some positive notes about the students even though they seemed hard to think of and then started to tell them about my concern and the lack of motivation with their child. I said that he doesnt like math and somehow needs to gain motivation and drive. They asked what we would be able to do as a team for him and the result was I email them every day telling them about how the class was and if their child had homework or not. He will be coming to tutoring sessions every Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday till 5pm. I will be supplying extra work for him to do if his homework is done. I hope we can work as a team to get this student to succeed in math class and find interest in the class when his work pays off and the class becomes easier. I know I will do my part in the process and make sure the student does his part when he is here in my classroom and at tutoring but without him and his parents this could still fall to pieces. I have to do my part and be happy with myself that I did my very best to help when I know there is a possibility that this may not work.

Reflections Week 13 (Nov 18-22) I spent last weekend in Lacombe where is snowed all weekend. I decided to stay in Lacombe Sunday night because of the bad road conditions, my mentors were very supportive and told me to stay safe. Monday afternoon when I returned and Tuesday morning, I had a lot of follow teachers come up to me and ask how the roads were coming back. I think if I was in a bigger school some teacher would not even know about it but when you have a smaller school they tend to be closer. I think I would like teaching in a smaller school better because of the communication you would have compared to a larger school where each major has their own department. I do understand that it is up to the school to consider how important communication is between teachers even though they are teaching high school instead of middle school. This school has also had to come together and open their lines of communication because of the circumstances but I believe they will keep this up because it lessens misunderstanding and gives teacher an opportunity to share their thoughts on situations at hand.

Today during our seminar we got asked some interview questions. It was good to hear other peoples point of view and see if you can relate to it yourself. Some questions seemed simple but a couple had multiple answers. Some were; what make a good teacher?, what is your goal when you walk into the classroom? and what was the last book you read. Now that I am getting close to being finished school, these are good questions to be thinking about. I am glad to have to support of everyone around me and now know that I would not be able to do this on my own. Once I am out in the real world with a job I want to remember this as well because everyone has something to learn from others which can only make them stronger.

Reflections Week 14 (Nov 25-29) Today I had a parent come in upset because I kept her students in at lunch because the students had been very noisy the last 2 classes. There were more than half that were very noisy so I decided to do a whole class detention at lunch. I had given them several warning that it was getting noisy and that I would keep them in at lunch and double to time every time a student talked, which led to 32 minutes detention. I let one of my students call home because his mom expects home for lunch. Then 10 minutes later his mom came into my classroom and asked to talk to me outside. She was very upset with me that I was keeping her son in. She said all students should eat lunch with I agreed with but said I gave them plenty of warn and chances to settle down and it did not happen. I said he should have thought of that before he missed behaved. She asked about my credential and said she wanted her student out of class to go eat. While this was happening a coworker saw how she was talking to me and came in for support. When she realized the mother was very upset she called the office and asked for the principal to come down. We settled it and her student went home for lunch. I talked to my mentor, the principal, and the teacher that helped me during the conflict about what happened. They told me that this parent was hard to deal with, to stand my ground for what I did, to deal with misbehaving students right away, to have another teacher there when feeling threatened, and to remember that this will hopefully be a onetime occurrence. They teachers told me that I did make the right decision and that things like this happen to everyone even teacher who have been teaching for numerous years. I explained to them what happened and they did not see anything wrong with it. I am so glad I went and talked to them because I reassured me that I am not the one at fault here. One of the teachers told me past experiences with the mother and that sometimes you see the bad side of the job.

This week I am prepping for my final interview. My mentor and administrator have filled in my final evaluation form and reading it over it has made me look back and think about my goals and if I have changed and followed them like I wanted to as the beginning of the semester.